I-skate

It's funny because in my head I really thought I could ice skate. It turns out I cannot and I can safely say that I was worst-on-the-rink during my attempt. Which is a bit like being the-smelliest-at-the party. You just can't hide it!


D was far superior. He even turned.

Tombuctou

Tombuctou necklace - once a passport to the town

I have been thinking a lot about Tombuctou of late. Not surprisingly given its prominence in the news.
What is it with these countries I have visited all turning to dust and mayhem!!! 
I have very strong memories of this town. Particularly the light, almost blinding and the watermelon vines sprawling their way out to the desert. It was a wild place even back then. I thought I might die there ( I had a flu that made my skin burn and my throat melt into swords.) I even had a possè of doctors ( only way to describe the bling that accompanied them) who came in to inspect me and prescribed me antibiotics the size of bananas. I remember looking out of my iron bar window at an encampment of Tuareg below me and thinking 'I may well die here but at least it is exotic.' It was certainly a difficult town to be in. Hard to find food or water and my favourite restaurant  Poulet d'Or  ( or Chicken of Gold as we preferred to call it) was so filled with flies the table hovered as we ate. But I remember the ornate doors of the mosques and the ancient secrets hidden within and it saddens me to think of what has been destroyed there now.
Tombuctou is not for foreigners. Myself or the Islamists. It belongs to the people who have struggled there for centuries, who have endured its barren wastelands and made themselves a home. 

pet please

I think I need a pet.

I probably need a job first to pay for said pet.

Or a publishing contract.

I think I would like a cat, a dog, a turtle and a sheep.

For starters anyway ( and I don't mean 'starters' as in dinner.)

pitch pitch pitch

I am trying to write a pitch for my manuscript The Uncanny Abilities of Philomena Philpott. (You know the novel I wrote that had  a publisher and then didn't.) It's silly because I lost a lot of confidence when the contract fell through with that publisher even though it had absolutely nothing to do with me. Now I am trying to give the manuscript a new home and it looks like a lot of places want a pitch. I don't pitch. I write. I procrastinate. I hide from decisions...but I definitely don't pitch.  I  guess I'll have to become a pitcher though if I want to succeed. I mean Philomena can't waste away in my cyber closet for the rest of her life, can she? That would be unkind.

If it bends we can kill it....

Today I decided to go to a yoga class after more than a year's break.  It started well. I felt relaxed by the music and the woody smell of incense cones. I even managed to cross my legs without creaking.

Then the teacher came. 

He looked like a shaggy-haired version of Arnold Schwarzenegger but with none of the mercy. It was exhausting and sickening and he spent every few minutes correcting me in every imaginable way. I think in his mind he thought 'ah she has had a break from yoga so she is rusty,' but the truth is I am not very good at yoga. I mean granted I was probably more bendy when I did it more regularly but I don't believe  I ever found any grace or poise. At the end he stopped me and asked me if I had a minute...in a Hollywood movie this would be where the instructor cracks on to the student and they do wildly twisty moves together to sounds of Roxette...but in this reality he took me though a variety of basic poses and explained just out utterly weak my core and legs are....( and something about me needing to suck my belly in.) I left the studio with a grateful smile on my face ( but secretly chanting 'there's no crying in yoga' over and over again.) Actually I was grateful to him for showing me the positions but I know when i go back again I will be just as terrible...Part of me wishes the teachers would just leave me to my terribleness but I suppose for them it is like watching a bad cook butcher a pavlova ...and I suppose they are trying to save me from back trauma as well.

******

O ...and Happy New Year to all

Monster week

Last night I met up with some of my lieblings monsters for an apero. It was lovely..as it always is... when I see their monstery faces. Actually this week has been quite the monster fest. I have seen monsters every single day ..all of them lieblings...every time joyous.

Tomorrow I have a skype job interview for a new job with new monsters. I have never done a skype interview before but I am guessing pajamas are not the go and I should probably wear a bottom with my top.  I am really nervous. I'm not sure if it is the interview or the job or the fact it means I am actually doing something which is making me so scared. Probably all of the above...and the fact that being worried is one of my my most advanced skills. I have a plan though if it all goes badly....a swift kick of the computer wires and an 'Oh no I'm losing the connection' should do the trick. I mean Switzerland is famous for its dodgy internet connections isn't it...along with its banks..ha ha ha.

Bad Glove

So now it definitely feels like I have traded the summer heat for a bit of winter chill. 

And in lieu of Bad Cat I decided to take Bad Glove out for some winter walkies. 

First we crossed over the Rhine and posed for pictures on the way. 

Then, exhausted, from all our walking...

Bad Glove decided to down a Cremant D'Alsace at the Munster Christmas markets.

Thank God for the Salvos

Last summer I went through a major clearing out frenzy and threw out my black winter jacket. To be honest it was time for it to be voted off the island anyway. Falling apart at the seams, loose buttons and cheesy remnants of way too many chaz bangelis streaked across its non-fur pelt. Of course now I am back in Basel I have a coat dilemma. While I could very easily walk around town in my slanket I realise I should at least try to look good on the outside so the insides can follow. Easier said than done on both fronts. The coats here are very expensive for poor laydees such as myself and I have been quite shocked at the cost of a simple and probably not even warm jacket.Enter the Heilig Armee ( the Salvos in English Speak.)
Today I found a wonderful black jacket with functional zipper AND buttons for only 19 CHF. Huzzah for the World indeed.